ScratchWorks Blog, August 2025
By Abby de Riel
We sat down with RJ Lane, District Chef of West Contra Costa Unified School District in the Bay Area of California, who is the newest Advisory Committee Member of ScratchWorks. Voted in this August, RJ first came to ScratchWorks in the 2023 Gathering in Austin and found himself talking with other participants about a shared resources model. He then joined the Shared Learning Committee and continues to lead by example, sharing advice and requests among ScratchWorks participants just like how he remembers learning from others when he started in the food industry. At West Contra Costa, he oversees 56 schools and 28,000 students every school day.
We interviewed RJ Lane to learn about his experience cooking from scratch and the role ScratchWorks plays in his school food journey.
ScratchWorks is supported thanks to generous funding from the From Now on Fund, Life Time Foundation, Newman’s Own Foundation, Wellness in the Schools, and Whole Foods Market Foundation.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where did your background in school food begin?
I started cooking as a kid. My dream as an 11-year-old was to go to the Culinary Institute of America. I even wrote a letter to them and had the chance to visit the Greystone facility in California when I was 12. At the time, it was a requirement to get a job in foodservice before applying to the Institute, so at 13, I got a dishwashing job and pretty much never looked back. I graduated from college and went straight to work, learning everything I needed to know on the job. I’ve worked at around 20 different restaurants in my 33 years in the food industry, including bakeries, catering companies, breweries, and running an organic bagel business in Berkeley (a true mark of a Californian).
I started volunteering in a school setting when my kids were in school, and I was impacted by the amount of food waste and plastic I saw in the cafeterias. I knew there could be a better way — a way without all the plastic, processed, pre-fabricated food. I decided to take a job with the West Contra Costa Unified School District when I heard they would be hiring a chef. Because they are a union house, I started as a substitute food service worker, even with all of my prior experience. It was humbling, but this was also the best way to learn about the food service department and its nuances of operation from the ground up, and it’s an experience I wouldn’t change. I wish everyone could start this way in school food!
What are some of the unique opportunities you have working at West Contra Costa Unified School District?
We are proud to serve organic food. We source and serve as much as possible: about 80% of the produce we serve is organic, and as much of the milk, cheese, and meat as we can get is organic too. West Contra Costa Unified School District in particular provides USDA-certified organic meals. California can incorporate more organic and locally-grown food into schools because of the sheer number of farms in the state, as well as state and federal grants aimed at local food procurement.
What impact does scratch cooking have on your team day to day?
I run training for our cooks, called a Culinary Boot Camp, whenever there are school breaks. The cooks are paid for the training and we are hands-on learning scratch-cooking skills like knife skills and food safety. It empowers the cooks and they love learning new skills; we emphasize the opportunity to learn when shifting away from processed foods.
My team is thankfully aligned on menu change, too. Our pizza is a great example; we used to use frozen pizza. Now, we can’t make our own pizza dough in-house, but we use bread from Acme Bread Company, tomato sauce from DiNapli Tomatoes, and cheese from Marin Cheese Company, all local companies with organic ingredients. We prepare the base at our central kitchen, and the toppings are all fresh vegetables!
Our students also inspire a lot of our change and weigh in on more than just pizza toppings. They have a voice in all of the new recipes that we introduce in cafeterias. We create posters with QR codes that the older students can scan with a phone, with questions asking what adjustments students would like to make with drop-down options they could choose from (for example, add more spices, softer texture, it’s too bitter). They’re already on their phones, so we encourage them to engage as much as possible with the lunch menu. With elementary students, we have a poster board with “I like it” and “not for me” columns and they have stickers to vote. We also get feedback a few weeks into the new menu item being served, because there’s a “wow” factor for the students on a fun recipe tasting day in the cafeteria. After a few weeks, we can assess if students still love the recipe and will eat it ongoing.
How did you first get involved in ScratchWorks, and what interests you in continuing to be a part of this national collective?
I initially joined the Chef Ann Foundation fellowship program to learn more about scratch-cooking in schools. We were a group of 24 people with diverse titles, from Directors, to Chefs, to Registered Dietitians, all looking to move our programs forward with a group text chat that we messaged each other in daily.
ScratchWorks offered what this fellowship didn’t: precise instructions on what other people around the country were doing. I am grateful for the professional opportunity to engage with a national network, and all of the fellows feel the same way. It’s what we are looking for and I continue to be excited as ScratchWorks grows!
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received from a fellow ScratchWorks participant?
When I attended the first ScratchWorks Gathering in 2023 in Austin, I remember hearing Stephen O’Brien speak, who was then the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Policy at New York City Public Schools. Hearing his “why” for getting into school food was impactful, as were the breakout groups where I heard the diversity of experiences and opinions that got us all to the Gathering in the first place.
I hadn’t really done a lot of public speaking or talks prior to ScratchWorks, and since then, I’ve probably given a presentation or speech every 3–6 months. I’ve presented locally and nationally for ScratchWorks, the California School Nutrition Association, and the USDA. More than anything, ScratchWorks has built my confidence and inspired me to speak up and share my story.
(For visual learners, watch RJ’s video feature here).
What are you most looking forward to on the Advisory Board?
As an original member of the Shared Learning Committee, I’m excited to continue our Speaker Series on topics important for scratch cooking. Our focus will shift to peer-to-peer learning, and we will launch a new communications platform at the end of this summer to help foster relationships and information-sharing among participants in a new way.
Our biggest goal this year as the Advisory Board is to build more localized opportunities for participants to visit each other. The ScratchWorks Gatherings are incredibly fun, but they are also busy, and naturally, almost all of us are away from our home school districts. This platform will encourage participants to visit other participants’ school districts nearby and be inspired in real-time and in a more casual format. We can step into each other’s kitchens to see specific types of equipment, how food is served on the line, how mise en place is facilitated, how food is stored, and how the kitchen team communicates.
What is your favorite recipe to make in the school kitchen? At home?
At West Contra Costa, we’re working on a personal-sized pizza on pita bread with pizza sauce, garlic paste, and a lot of vegetables. We’re making the bread thinner, listening to student feedback, as especially today a lot of high school students are more observant about carbohydrates and nutritional balance in a meal. The students want more flavor, which we love!
After an upcoming year of renovations in my kitchen, we will have a fully-operational bakery, which is exciting to me as I’ll be able to use my own pizza dough recipe. We’re planning to make our own whole-wheat bread rolls and hamburger and hot dogs buns, all with the same piece of equipment, that can be made to freeze at the central kitchen, sent to individual school locations, and they can bake them fresh in the morning so that as kids walk into school, they’ll smell freshly-baked bread. You can’t beat that smell.
At home, my go-to is a charcuterie board. I need something easy when I’m home. I’m a cheese fiend, so I live in a great place for that!